


Snowfall

by Escalus



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Laura Hale Appreciation Week 2018, Missing Scene, Mystery, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 15:29:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16088942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escalus/pseuds/Escalus
Summary: Laura comes back to Beacon Hills.  She's driven to protect what remains of her family.  After all, isn't that what an alpha is supposed to do?





	Snowfall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Laura Hale Appreciation Week 2018

The snow started with the dawn, yet it did not seem to be ending anytime soon. Delicate and slow, the snowflakes drifted down from the soft gray sky and into the endless sea of bare tree limbs. Like innocent children, they wandered too close to the trees or the dead leaves on the ground or the hard dirt itself, touched them, and disappeared. All that effort, simply to vanish.

Laura stood on the burned front porch of the Hale House and watched the flurries. It was unlikely that any of the snow would stick. It made her feel melancholy.

She picked up her watch and her wallet from the ground where she had left them. She had run through the Preserve for the sheer joy of running, but if she wanted to make her lunch date, she had to get moving. She sprinted to the Camaro.

The house slowly disappeared in her rear view mirror. She was used to the tumble-down wreck now. The first time she had visited Beacon Hills after the fire, the rush of feelings when she stood in the threshold had threatened to overwhelm her. But the truth she had learned, instance by painful instance, was that her memories were just as much hers to control as her shape. She had power over them, not the other way around.

She didn’t think about the past when she was at the Hale House unless she wanted to. And when she did, she only spent time on the memories she wanted to spend time on. She was no longer at the mercy of what the sights, sounds, and smells of her former home evoked.

She wished that Derek could learn this. She hadn’t brought him back this time, because he was so sensitive to the slightest trigger when it came to the family. Considering why she was here and what she was doing, it would have been close to torture for her to insist on him coming along.

She had spent Christmas with him before driving out. Christmas had always been big in the family, because it was a time when the concept of family became special. Most people didn’t live with their extended family the way the Hales had, so Christmas became not just a religious holiday or an excuse to give each other presents, but it was also a celebration of their family. After all, familiarity breeds contempt; even werewolves could forget the blessing of having generations under the same roof.

That was one of the problems of their life in New York. The apartment could seem so … empty. She had chosen one and paid the rent with cash on the northwest side of Prospect Park. It had been advertised as cozy, but it often felt, between the two of them, like it was full of vast empty caverns. While it was never home, and sometimes she shivered in the emotional coldness as they passed each other in the hallways, it was far away from Beacon Hills.

Yet, it was safe and that is what she wanted Derek to be. Safe. 

She glanced over to the piece of paper on the front passenger’s seat. It was a leaflet that had been sent to her address in New York. In the Preserve, someone had killed a deer and carved the symbol for vendetta into its side. It was a threat to the remaining Hales, as clear as day. Who else would understand the message?

Her instincts told her to ignore the message and the trap it no doubt was. Some devious hunter or some asshole rival werewolf was poking at her vulnerabilities. They were trying to get her to react, rather than act, and that was against the firmest and most important lesson that Talia had ever taught her. The moment you started to let your enemy determine your moves for you, you were at a disadvantage. She could have stayed in New York and waited for her opponent’s next move to reveal their identity.

But she had to come back. She had to. For Peter.

After they had settled in New York, Laura had insisted on visiting Peter twice a year. Every time she stood at the foot of his bed in that dreary hospital room, she hoped for signs of improvement, but nothing happened. She could tell that Peter was healing but so goddamn slowly that sometimes she believed she was imagining it. Yet, she was the alpha of the pack and he was there on the edge of her consciousness. She had never severed the bond. She couldn’t bring herself to leave him omega.

But she couldn’t have brought him with them, not when she and Derek had been so young and so vulnerable. Peter hadn’t been found by the pair of them; he’d been found by the police department, who took him to the hospital. He was in the system. If she had transferred him to New York, it would have left a trail a blind man could follow.

She had felt unbearably guilty for the first six months. For the first year really. He hadn’t gotten any better, which meant he still needed care, yet the hunters had not made a move toward him. She had to conclude that she had made the right decision.

She pulled into coffee shop on the road between Beacon Hills and Hill Valley. She came here every time she visited. It was the part of the trip that she looked forward to the most.

Satomi Ito sat in her favorite space with her favorite cup of tea. It was the wild purple reishi that Satomi had always shared with their mother. Laura hated it, but she always drank it when she was with the older alpha. Always.

“I was surprised,” Satomi said carefully as Laura sat down across from her, “to hear you were coming. It is not your usual time.”

“It is not the usual situation.” Laura placed the paper on the table so the other alpha could see it. “Have you heard about anything else strange?”

The alpha took the sheet. “I did not even hear of this marking.” She clucked her tongue. “Sad. Before you ask me, when I heard you were coming I talked with my beta. The nurse I have watching your uncle has seen no strangers around him.”

Laura had met with Satomi the day after she had decided to leave Beacon Hills. She had begged the woman for help in protecting her uncle, and Satomi had agreed, revealing that one of the nurses, Kayleen Betcher, was one of her betas. The Ito Pack would keep an eye on Peter Hale for as long as it took for him to get better.

They drank in silence. Satomi did not rush things, ever. It had been frustrating to Laura at first, but she had come to appreciate it. 

Finally, the woman tapped her finger on the symbol. “You know what this means?” 

“Revenge. Vendetta.” Laura didn’t know if it was supposed to mean revenge for her family or revenge against it.

“Do you know why werewolves chose the spiral?”

Laura shook her head. 

“Most people start at the center.” Satomi placed her finger on the table and traced the pattern. “And they spiral out. One person, seeking to redress a grievance. But they are wrong. To those werewolves who have bothered to learn what life can teach them, you start on the outside and spiral inward. Vengeance consumes everything, even the one who pursues it.”

Laura nodded to show she understood, but she wasn’t going to let it go. “There is a difference between vengeance and justice.”

“This is a trap, Laura.”

“It sure is.”

“Yet, you seem determined to step into it.”

“You know how much time I’ve spent trying to figure out who burnt our house down. I’ve talked to you about the false leads and the dead ends. This _is_ a trap, but it is also a lead. The person who did this knows something about the fire, or they wouldn’t use the symbol. And if they’re the ones who set the fire, that’s even better.”

“It has been six years.”

“There is no statute of limitations for murder. Do you know why? Because murder is so much greater than any other crime. It kills possibility. What could have Cora become if she wasn’t a pile of ashes in a common grave? We’ll never know.”

“And what will you do if you catch them?”

“I’ll figure something out. Probably I’ll go to the police, once I make sure they won’t expose us.”

“You will not kill them?”

Laura shook her head. “No. Killing them won’t bring my family back. It won’t make Derek smile again. It won’t heal Peter. It solves nothing; it just puts more bodies in the graveyard. Justice is about how the world should be. I want a world where what happened to us … _doesn’t happen._ ”

“You have become very wise for someone so young.”

“I had great teachers.” Laura smiled at the old woman, who pretended that Laura did not mean her. 

“Speaking of which. Are you going to talk to Alan?” 

“Yes. I know he didn’t send me the flyer, but it came from his office.” 

“Give him my greetings.”

“Absolutely.” Laura smiled at that. Satomi has warm relations with Alan, but she doesn’t visit him often. She doesn’t visit many people often, but she always makes time for Laura. That is a good feeling. “Now tell me about the kids.”

After tea was over, Alan Deaton was her next stop.

Mom told her about Emissaries and told her that Deaton was hers. She also suggested that Laura not tell her pack – her family – when she became alpha. Laura was uncomfortable and didn’t understand. She was uncomfortable because if she was alpha, Mom wouldn’t be, and she didn’t understand. Weren’t emissaries supposed to help you?

“They’re advisors, not servants,” Talia had told her. “And there’s a very good reason for that. They’re supposed to help us maintain our links with humanity, but not _be_ our link. We can’t understand humans if we don’t live among them.”

It was why Laura decided to flee to New York, and not the Yukon Territory.

She arrived at the Animal Clinic in the middle of the afternoon. The winter sun was slanting in the sky. The bell rung on the office door with a pleasing familiarity. 

“I’ll be right out!” Deaton called from the back room. With her hearing, she overheard him giving his assistant instructions. “Once you finish feeding the cats, you can go home.”

“I don’t need to leave early.”

“It’s okay, Scott. It’s Winter Recess. You should enjoy yourself.” 

Alan Deaton emerges from the back room. It takes a moment for him to process her being here, but then he smiles gently. “Laura.”

“You’ve got yourself someone to do the dirty work, I see.” 

“As you suggested. Scott’s a good kid. Dependable and kind. I’m sure you’d like him.”

“If you like him, I’ll like him.” Laura fidgeted a bit. “Can we talk?” 

“Let’s go into my office. It’s more private.”

They had settled down in his office. It’s not very comfortable. Laura got the feeling he didn’t use it that much. She produced the flyer. 

“I remember the animal. I was consulted by the police on it. I knew what the symbol meant, of course. I had hoped it was a one-time thing. It was sent to you?”

Laura nodded. “I don’t know how they knew were I lived.”

“That is very alarming. They did not get it from me. I don’t keep written records of your address in my home or here in the office. I didn’t tell you because …”

“It could be dangerous for me.”

“I don’t think that we can deny the possibility that it would be. It’s also not your responsibility. The only possible way they could get your address is if they looked into Peter’s private medical records.”

“That means it is my responsibility. If they can get to Peter --”

“If they were going to kill Peter, they would have done it by now,” Deaton reasoned. “If you want my advice …”

“You know I do.”

“Go back to New York. Take care of yourself. Take care of Derek. I know you want to find justice for those who burned your family, but I don’t know if that’s possible. I do know that every single person who was in that house would want you to be safe and happy.”

Laura glanced down at the floor. Alan had a point. But she couldn’t go back. She had to know. 

As if Alan could read her mind, he went on. “How is Derek?”

“Derek is … Derek.” She sighed. “He’s surviving, but he’s not living. Every time we make progress towards being a family again, I come back here to check on Peter or I do some more work on the mystery, and it’s like we’re right back where we started. He pulls away. I think … I think he resents me, but I don’t know why.”

“I’m sure you’ve tried talking to him about it.”

“He won’t talk about it. Ever. Pushing him just makes him leave. Last time I tried talking to him about it, he was gone for three days.” She knew the veterinarian was not going to approve, but she had to do this. “I think he’s not going to heal … we’re not going to heal … until we know who did this. Will you look at what I have, Alan?”

He consented, reluctantly. She brought her clues in with her and went through them with him. He gave him a name – his assistant told him that Adrian Harris was a teacher at the high school, and apparently quite the asshole. She decides to pay him a visit that night. 

The night was productive. She now had an image and a description – a bad description, but a description. She’d spend the next couple of day trying to track that image down, maybe visit Satomi and Alan once more. She was feeling confident, so it was time to visit Peter.

She still felt the need to use the service entrance of the Beacon’s Rest Long-Term Care Facility. Would the Argents still be watching the place? Would they still be stalking around her uncle’s comatose form to see if they can snag a few lose wolves?

She didn’t know the answer to those questions. After all, they burned down a house to get the Hales; they burned perfectly normal humans – even children – to get at wolves. She couldn’t assume that they wouldn’t be so fanatic as to watch a coma victim for six years.

She knew the facility very well. She’d been there twelve times. She always snuck in with the most stealth she could manage. It was humorous to her that she had to treat these opportunities like she was breaking into an enemy fortress, but she couldn’t take the chance – for Peter or Derek. She wouldn’t stay long; there was nothing more depressing than standing over Peter’s motionless body.

Before the fire, Peter was funny; he had a dry wit that kept the world from being too serious. Sometimes, his disdain and biting commentary would go too far, so then he would do something kind to make up for it. He had only made her cry twice, and then Peter had made her feel so special afterwards.

To see him like this was almost too much for her to bear. But she had made herself come, year after year, visit after visit. 

Once a month between visits, she talked on the phone with his caretakers, always careful to call from a payphone outside of New York City proper. They never had anything to tell her, because they simply couldn’t know what he was. They couldn’t know the signs that he was getting better. 

This time, as usual, she came during the early morning; it was snowing again just like the day before. Fat white fluffy flakes filled the morning air. The cliché would have been for her to do this at night, but she knew that this was a better time. It was the early morning, when people were waking up and still not fully awake and those who had stayed up all night were getting tired, that was safest for infiltration. The snow just made it easier.

Peter had been sat in a chair. She was angry, all of the sudden. Why put him in a goddamn chair? Who are they fooling? Themselves? Peter? 

“Hello, Uncle Peter.” 

There was no answer. There was never any answer. She didn’t say anything else, because she had already said everything before. He was just sitting there. 

A nurse paused at the doorway. “Hello, Ms. Hale.”

Laura rubbed at her eyes. “Yes?” The nurse has a nametag on. “Jennifer?”

“This isn’t your usual visit.”

“No. I’m in town on business, and I thought that I’d stop by. I know … I know that the last time I called there was still no change, but has there …”

Jennifer shook her head. “There’s nothing I can tell you, Ms. Hale.”

“Oh. Thank you. It’s just so hard … to see himself like this.”

“There’s always hope.” The nurse stopped on her rounds to come into the room. “Sometimes, you’d be surprised what has to happen to push someone along the road to recovery.”

“That’s very optimistic of you.” Laura offered her a bright smile. “I’m glad that my uncle has such good people looking after him.”

“I do what I can.” Jennifer turned to leave but then stopped. “Will you be staying long in Beacon Hills?”

The moment stretched itself into eternity. Laura had to make a decision. She could go back to New York like Alan wanted her to. She could take this new information and add it to her file. The threat of the flyer didn’t seem to be much a threat. She could go back to New York, and she could try to talk to Derek again.

But the mystery was here, and she needed to solve it. Satomi and Alan were concerned for her safety, but she wanted more than safety. She wanted to live, and she couldn’t live without family. Her instincts told her that until she resolved this issue, until she had the truth behind the fire, her family could never be whole. She had to stay. She had to find the truth, good or bad.

“For a while, at least. There are some things I have to do. I’ll try to see Peter again before I leave.”

Jennifer beamed at her. “I’m sure he’ll be happy if you do.” 

Outside, the dancing white flakes were still falling, finally sticking to the ground, painting everything white, making the world fresh and new. But it wouldn’t last long.


End file.
